


reaper man

by guttersvoice



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:37:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8391052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guttersvoice/pseuds/guttersvoice
Summary: Death is cold, and dreams of music.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> goD idfk, ive fallen headfirst into this podcast and this ship and i did some fun reading up on the raven queen the other day and im just... very enamoured with how awkward and smitten the grim reaper is with this shitty wizard elf  
> so i wrote a bit of a character study i guess???? maybe ill continue this, maybe i wont

Sometimes, when he's feeling particularly self-indulgent, Kravitz lets himself think of each contract he takes on as something he can orchestrate; he directs and guides his marks as one might a piece of music, weaving souls like sounds together with nothing short of elegance. His fingers trace patterns in the air at his side, nails or bone clicking against whatever weapon the Raven Queen has seen fit to equip him with, or whatever form he's managed to coalesce on the spot, and he lets himself imagine strings, wind, percussion, rising and falling into place as he sees fit.

This is self-indulgent. Not because he's required to keep his work detached and precise - his god presides over winter and death, but she isn't all stiff and cold and cruel, and encourages a bit of dramatics so long as the job gets done. Won't hurt to frighten mortals into remembering that they are mortal. No, it's self-indulgent because he is supposed to have given up on that. He made this choice a good long time ago, and he cannot regret it.

Just sometimes he lets his mind slip to thinking of conducting music rather than his bounties, and his fingers curl and his hands tip at the wrists, and he wonders.

Never for very long. It's not like he dislikes his job, after all. He wouldn't have taken it if he wasn’t prepared to swing the scythe for eternity, so he sort of has to enjoy it at least a little bit. Restoring balance to the physical and astral planes has a certain appeal, and if thinking in time signatures sometimes means he enjoys it a little more, what's the harm?

So he does the job, and enjoys the perks. Knowing that the killing you're doing is morally correct, and that you're really just picking up what's past due - well, landing that blow is one hell of a stress reliever each and every time. And immortality is nothing to sniff at, either, even with the dubious grasp on his own appearance that comes with it At least the skeletal form helps with intimidation, and after this long, it’s so comfortable it’s hard to know which is his true shape, especially when the face takes more effort to wear than not.

He never feels the cold.

That's not something he really noticed, for countless ages; just another fact of his unlife he takes for granted, really. He hasn’t shivered once since heeding the call of his goddess, and it doesn’t occur to him that that’s even the case, natural as it feels.

Until Taako shows up.

Or, not the moment he shows up, exactly. It's not like Kravitz considered any of that party anything more than a mark to take out and collect on until things in the lab properly went to shit.

-

When Taako called him handsome, he was glad he had no blood and no cheeks for it to rush to. Not because it was Taako specifically, though the elf clearly had a certain aesthetic appeal even in the unflattering nullsuit. Just because he couldn't remember a time he’d been called handsome by anyone but the Raven Queen, who usually seemed to say that kind of thing when she was feeling particularly lofty and considering her Reaper as some sort of well-dressed pet.

A hunting dog, perhaps. He doesn’t mind it so much. He might be immortal, but next to gods he always feels as small as any mortal must.

At least, any mortal with a lick of sense. Taako’s adventuring party (he can't quite bring himself to even think the name they give themselves) notwithstanding.

-

So, not when Taako first showed up in Kravitz’s personal timeline.

A bit later. Sat on a pottery bench and appropriately chugging wine while Kravitz struggles to grasp at some understanding of the literally death-defying events that seem to gravitate to Taako and his accomplices. The tips of Taako’s long ears start to turn red and flick back and forth as he talks and makes his way through most of the first bottle himself, and Kravitz keeps getting distracted from his increasingly wonky vase by thoughts of wanting to reach out and touch them every time they twitch. Maybe the wine is affecting even his old bones, a little. 

He’s smiling and laughing, too, but that’s not the wine. He’s pretty sure he just likes this elf. Certainly he feels at ease beside him, even when he can’t quite keep up with the weirdly specific analogies he’s trying to explain his case with.

Somehow it seems Taako feels just as much at ease with him, too, despite knowing who he is and acknowledging how dangerous he is. Maybe it’s just the wine relaxing him. His hand gestures are getting more and more expressive as he drinks, at least. It’s a little charming. Kravitz is more than a little charmed by the honesty and openness he’s being offered.

So he offers some back, almost without thinking. Is more honest here in this pottery-and-wine bar sat with someone he’s tried to kill more than once than he has been in a longer while than he cares to think too hard about.

And then Taako rests his hand on Kravitz’s. If movies existed on  Faerûn , someone might try to compare this to one about a boyfriend from the astral plane, but it’s not like that. For one thing, they’re not boyfriends, he reminds himself, inner voice stern and cold and familiar.

For another, it’s just one hand on top of another. Intimate, in a way that Kravitz can’t remember ever experiencing with a mortal before, but just a touch.

Taako jokes about how clammy he is, but Kravitz barely hears him.

Warmth curls through him where they touch, and it’s like - it’s like - 

Maybe the first slow movement of a bow across cello strings? 

The fingers on his other hand twitch, and one goes right through the too-fragile side of his attempt at a vase, and he focuses back on the conversation, and things go great for most of the evening, and then they go bad for a few frightening minutes, and then he gets an assurance that they’ll see each other again, and he can smile even as Taako waggles his fingers and says ‘Adios’ like he’s been on an ordinary date with an ordinary person.

The rift shuts between them, and Kravitz - briefly, barely - shivers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this in between writing chunks of my nanowrimo so im sorry if its inconsistent and bad  
> but this got such positive responses i couldnt not continue.. i love these two fools

In terms of a human timescale, it's a while till they do get to see each other again. To an elf, it’d feel like a normal gap, he's pretty sure. To an immortal it's forever and no time at all.

He's been trying to focus on work, not letting himself daydream about warm hands and honest eyes in the most life-threatening job he's ever heard of. It's not his place to worry about a mortal’s well being, and it's not like him to be distracted on the job.

But there are some things you can't quite help, when you have a crush and you’re the Grim Reaper, and one of those is subconsciously keeping track of that person’s heartbeat. When he feels Taako die again, a sudden sharp tug in his core, Kravitz stumbles in pursuit, nearly falling through the rift he's pulled open.

All he can think of is the way Taako’s voice had caught when he was trying to be blasé.

“As long as I don't, you know - die - again -”

He'd said at the time that there were ways of dealing with that, and he'd meant it, but he hadn't expected it so soon, wasn't ready-

And then the world shifts a little and Taako isn't dead, hadn't died in the first place, still has a life signature and a beating heart that wasn't stopped out there somewhere, and it's so natural to brush it off as a false alarm or distracted paranoia that even without the details Kravitz understands: a god's hand is at work here.

He belongs to the Raven Queen, but a ‘thank you’ to Istus never hurt anyone. The astral and celestial planes are close, metaphysically speaking, so her soft laugh echoes loud around his skull. He resolves to serve her better snacks the next time she comes over for poker night. No off-brand Doritos this time, she's getting the real thing.

His mark is getting away. Time to close the trap and stop thinking about the lock of gold hair that escaped to curl down a bronze throat that he'd been too nervous to tuck out of the way. He's fine, and Kravitz will have plenty of chances to see how soft his hair is. He refocuses, brushes down his suit, and pushes his cold flame core through the rift to construct a body out of scrap metal and sort this little felon out.

-

It's only a day later that he's able to make his way to that moonbase again, but it feels like longer. He's been tapping out anxious patterns on his femur for the past few hours; it's a relief to coalesce his non-skeletal form in Taako’s room.

It's a breach of privacy, and he feels terribly guilty immediately, but it feels safer than just showing up in the shared quarters that either of Taako’s accomplices could walk into. He doesn’t know how much those two know about the - date - they went on. Just thinking that word brings the memory of warm fingers to his cold skin, and he pushes it down with his curiosity, sits still and keeps his hands to himself, perched on the edge of Taako’s bed and trying to be patient. Does his best to look elegant and unruffled, arranges himself like he hasn't been riddled with unnecessary worry for the past several hours.

When the door clicks open, Taako practically falls through it, and all pretense of composure is lost in favour of leaping to catch him.

“Oh,” Taako mumbles, blinking up at Kravitz with an exhausted smile. He’s so warm to touch, and Kravitz can feel the movements of his breathing. Rhythmic, rising and falling. Kravitz thinks of lungs and oxygen-enriched blood, and of flutes, low and quiet. “Thought Merle fixing it meant i wouldn't have to see you.”

“You sound disappointed.”

Taako chuckles, pulls himself out of Kravitz’s arms and kicks off his boots before flopping face-first onto his bed.

“Well if you're here to collect I can't say I'm especially ready, my man,” he replies, muffled by the soft, sunshine-yellow comforter his face is buried in. His hat falls halfway off, catches on a long ear.

“Oh,” Kravitz says. The implications of the Reaper showing up shortly after an incident that might have involved cheating death had completely slipped his mind in place of worrying about a mortal’s safety. “No, that's not-- I was just-”

He falters a little. Taako’s hat falls off all the way as he rolls over to look at him. There’s something like a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and a strange light in his eyes. He's laid out on a bed in front of Kravitz, legs spread a little, skirt riding high on his thighs from the movement. The bare skin and that look would make anyone blush, but Kravitz isn't sure he's even able to.

He can't tell, but he is. Cheeks darkening too-obviously, and if nothing else, Taako notices that.

“Just felt like loitering in my bedroom, huh? Hope you weren't poking around in my private business.”

“No!” Kravitz’s face actually, somehow, feels a little warm. He didn't know that was possible for him anymore. “I wouldn't infringe on your privacy, I just - didn't want to alarm your, uh, the other two, so I thought here was best. I should have contacted you via farspeech first, but--”

He can't keep eye contact with Taako anymore. Those warm fingers are playing with the hem of his skirt, millimetre by millimetre baring just a little more thigh, and it's getting to be a little too much. He was just supposed to be confirming his safety, nothing more.

“I was worried about you,” he confesses. “I know you're used to such a dangerous line of work, but it's - Taako, I felt you die.”

Taako sits up. The smile is still there, but it’s less dangerous and more wistful now. His ears twitch downwards and back, and it's that completely unconscious movement that tells Kravitz just how bad Taako’s latest job must have been.

“Gotta say, I kinda hoped Merle was exaggerating on that one,” he admits, voice light and breezy, fingers interlacing and folding around each other over and over in his lap. “But you're… not here to cart me off to the astral plane or whatever?”

“No, it was fixed through celestial means, and that's none of my business,” Kravitz explains, loosening his tie a little. “I just-” he hesitates, but pushes forward. “Wanted to make sure you were okay with my own eyes.”

“Well, my guy, here I am, in all my resplendent glory,” Taako gestures grandly to himself, and Kravitz can't help but laugh a little. “You happy now?”

His meaning is clear: I'm fine, fuck off.

“I,” Kravitz manages, but he's not really sure what he wants to say, now. Taako’s right, he should be happy to see him in one piece. But - “You look exhausted,” he says, instead of ‘yes, I'll be off now’, or ‘thank you for reassuring me’. It's honest, at least, but Taako stares at him a little for saying it.

“I mean, sure, but I'm alive, right?” Kravitz can't figure out that expression. There's no small measure of confusion there, but perhaps that makes sense after being told he looks tired by the Grim Reaper. The flicking back and forth of his ears is avoidant, though; like there’s something more he wants to say, but can’t, or won’t. “Can't always stay well-rested on the job. Gotta wait till I'm home to get my meditate on.”

That’s not the point, Kravitz wants to say. ‘The job’ shouldn’t do that to him, he thinks, but he doesn’t know how to say that without insulting Taako, questioning his choices in a way he already knows is unfair.

Anyway, who is he to say what Taako should or shouldn’t go through? The only thing he’s qualified to decide that’s anywhere near such a thought is when it’s time for Taako to pass over. Even then, he’s just an instrument of fate. They both are: both emissaries for goddesses in charge of those carefully woven threads, he realises. Their jobs are about consistency, guiding things to their rightful places, stopping things from getting wildly out of control.

He thinks of a baton shaping sounds. His fingers flex by his sides.

“Should I leave?” Kravitz asks, and Taako flops back down, legs kicking up. His socks are a dark pink and go up almost to his knees, but they could probably pull up to reach his mid-thigh, and likely were worn that high when Taako left on the job that (killed him) exhausted him so thoroughly. For a moment, he thinks about helping pull them up, about his own hands cold against warm thighs, and blushes again.

“I don’t think I’ll be a great conversational partner in this state, Krav,” he admits, and the nickname, even if it’s born only from tiredness, makes Kravitz’ white-fire core glow brighter, unseen through his suit and flesh. “You can stick around if you wanna watch me meditate, but that might be a little weird.”

That would be weird. He’s right, but Kravitz is tempted, for a second.

“I’ll be off then,” he says, a little reluctant but tearing a rift back to the astral plane, one-handed and casual. “I - I’m glad to see that you’re alright. Sorry for, um, infringing on your privacy like this. It won’t happen again.”

He’s about to step through when Taako sits up again.

“Hey,” he says, and Kravitz stops. “I’ll call you.”

Something about his tone makes it clear that he means it, and that he hasn’t meant those words in quite a long time.

Kravitz closes the space between them, emboldened suddenly, and takes one of Taako’s hands in his own, pulls it to his lips, allows himself the barest touch of warmth against his own coldness.

“You always this chilly, then, huh?”

“Sorry,” he says, letting go, but when he dares to look, Taako is smiling. There’s a bit of a laugh in his eyes, so perhaps he’s been a little too formal, but this isn’t something he wants to rush. This is worth as much time as it takes, and he hopes Taako understands that.

“Could be worse,” Taako shrugs, and flaps his hands to shoo him, but it's not cruel or dismissive. Just tired. “Go on, back to ghost town, let an elf get his rest.”

Kravitz goes, but now he can’t stop smiling; he presses his own fingers to his lips to catch any hint of lingering warmth that might remain.

In his private room at the lowest part of the Bureau of Balance’s moon base, Taako admires the still-cold patch of knuckles that the Grim Reaper just kissed, and tries to force himself to believe his heartbeat is so loud because he’s uncomfortable and a little nervous about such blatant romantic interest coming from someone who doesn’t seem to expect anything in return. Nothing more than that.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s less than a week later when Kravitz’s stone of farspeech warms against magic-spun flesh and a familiar voice echoes out of it.

“You busy over there, my man?”

Kravitz glances down, then back up at the false beauty of the necromancer he has pinned up against the wall of their underground laboratory, whose already-stiff face has frozen in - disbelief, perhaps? They’d been afraid until that drawling tone had echoed from the reaper’s chest, and now - they look more awkward than anything. Better than trying to figure out some way to get away from him. They won’t be able to, after all.

He readjusts his scythe, tucking them between the wall and one of the floor-to-ceiling cylinders filled with misty fluid that stand along the walls of this room full of crimes against death.

Actually, the cylinders probably have a lot to do with the crimes. He’s not feeling great about having to sort those out after the necromancer.

For now, though, he untucks his stone of farspeech from under his shirt. His is flat and smooth and made of something that could be sapphire, and hangs from a silver chain.

“Classy,” the necromancer comments, maybe even honestly, and he shoves the blunt edge of his scythe against their throat, shutting them up.

“Oh, are you with a ‘client’?” He can hear the mock quotes Taako is forming with his fingers in his tone. It’s almost endearing, actually.

“I-” he hesitates. He is at work, technically. But he doesn’t want to lose out on this chance to talk to Taako, irrational as that sounds even just thinking it to himself. “Not for long.”

It comes out a bit more ominous than he’d intended, but he doesn’t take the time to make it artistic, or to enjoy the fear in his mark’s suddenly widening eyes, the way their manufactured face slackened in shock as he brought the scythe down on them, separating their lifeforce from their body in one clean slice.

Messier and faster than he’d normally work, but he supposes it’s effective.

“Done,” he confirms to Taako, and gets an airy laugh in response.

“Guess not all of the death-defying criminals you go after are quite as tough as ole Taako, huh?” Kravitz opens his mouth to explain the several layers of enchantment he’d had to work through to get to this vain recluse, but thinks better of it before Taako adds, “Or as cute.”

He tries not to laugh too audibly, but apparently the short exhale through his nose is enough for sensitive elven ears.

“Definitely not as cute as you,” he confirms quickly, to make sure he knows Kravitz hadn’t been mocking him by laughing. The snort that immediately follows suggest that he probably needn’t have worried, but here he is anyway.

“Who could be?”

Kravitz looks at the face his bounty had constructed for themself out of forbidden magic and stolen flesh, and thinks of freckles and a crooked smile and clever, warm fingers.

“No one,” he answers, with perhaps a touch too much honesty, because the silence hangs a little too long before Taako speaks again.

“Yeah, you know it, babe,” he says, and Kravitz wants to see the expression on his face as much as he wants to hide his own reaction to the nickname. “Anyways, I’ve got this quick solo missh--” Kravitz assumes he means ‘mission’ - “Down in Neverwinter, and I’ve also got this unlimited pasta pass for Fantasy Olive Garden, wondered if you wanna help me smuggle out extra breadsticks?”

He’s inviting Kravitz to go to a restaurant. The invitation is fairly casual, but not subtle: he’s leaving it up to Kravitz to call this a date or not.

A tiny smile shivers across his face.

“I’d be delighted to accompany you, Taako.” He immediately regrets the formality, but through the stone he hears the flumph of Taako flopping onto - his bed, or a sofa, or something, and the breathy giggle that accompanies the noise sounds delighted.

“You wanna meet there on Friday, then? How’s sunset work for you? I can’t promise I’ll be perfectly on time, though, you know how my work always drags on longer than planned, and all.”

“That’s quite all right,” Kravitz assures him, wanting that edge of concern to leave Taako’s voice immediately. He was hardly on time for their first - personal meeting - after all. “It’s not often I get to visit this plane for reasons other than work, after all. And I might get held up by my job, too - so if either of us is running late, we should call each other, right?”

“Sounds like a plan, my man.” Taako does sound more at ease with that.

“Then, it’s a date,” Kravitz says, and cuts off the connection as he hears Taako’s slight intake of breath.

He does have a flair for dramatics, after all, and has had plenty of time to practice timing.

The soles of his patent leather ankle boots are slick with blood, he realises, and heaves a sigh - unnecessary, something he wouldn’t have done until recent developments in his unlife, especially considering the incorporeal nature of his form - and untangles the stubborn soul from the blade of his scythe, shoving it through a rift back to the astral plane.

The bounty doesn’t cover the clone bodies in the vats, and the illicitly living soul isn’t any more, so he doesn’t have to stay, but he does for another few seconds, attention caught again by the fake, beautiful face of the necromancer.

His own face is, technically, false. He’s not sure it’s his own anymore. He’s not even sure it’s the same every time he puts it on, at this point. Taako had called him handsome, but -- he cuts the thought off, widening the rift he’d already torn and stepping back through. It didn’t do to dwell on the life he might have had, once.

Still, he dwells a little, coalescing flesh over his skull when he retreats to his private quarters, pulling and squeezing the features to reassure himself that they’re the same as any living person’s.

A little colder, perhaps.

-

He’s early, actually.

It’s not like he’d had anything else to do (had cleared his schedule), and being early would give him a chance to enjoy Neverwinter without the pressure of work (and to calm his pre-date nerves, which he was trying so hard to deny were even a thing).

Fantasy Olive Garden is on a square right near the centre of the sprawling city; there’s hanging baskets full of flowers, and glass spheres enchanted to float well above citizens of all shapes and sizes, and a fountain in the middle. It’s marble, featuring a statue of a hooded humanoid figure holding aloft what looks like, perhaps, a very small book with rounded edges and misshapen pages. The bottom of the fountain glitters with coins.

Wishes, Kravitz supposes, and drops a copper in himself.

The air is warm even as the sun gets lower in the sky, and a bard is busking in one corner of the square, playing something complex on the lute and singing something slow and sweet, a blessing for rain somewhere far away. His fingers twitch with the notes until he catches himself. Learning an instrument now would be a waste of his time and he knows it well. He doesn’t have the talent anyway.

He rolls the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. Then unrolls them, because he’d tried to dress at least a little less formally than he usually would, but that feels like too much. Then rolls them back up because he’s wrinkled the fabric now, and it looks bad.

“Kra-a-av?” his stone of farspeech says, pulling out the single syllable into several.

“Taako,” he responds immediately, every part of him suddenly tense. That sort of lilting nonchalance could easily be a bad sign, coming from Taako - it takes half his effort not to leap to his feet, and the other half to keep his skin on. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m running on good time and everything, it’s just--” A quiet huff, of annoyance, perhaps. “I had a surprise guest today and couldn’t give the little bastard the slip, so we’re a party of three, I’m afraid.”

Taako isn’t being quiet, so it’s not someone he minds insulting within earshot. Which tells Kravitz approximately nothing. The word ‘little’ suggests that it’s not Magnus, at least, but he’s a little more nervous about the dwarf whose arm he tricked off, actually.

Surely Taako wouldn’t bring him along, though?

“That’s fine, Taako,” he manages, pushing down the worry and the slight disappointment that comes with losing his chance to spend some time alone with the elf without any work responsibilities hanging over either of them. “I’ll see you soon?”

The questionmark slips out unintended.

“Sure, I’m like, round the corner, hope you’re ready to enjoy my presence,” Taako jokes, and hangs up.

Kravitz is ready, actually. The sun’s almost down, and the glass spheres floating above the square are beginning to glow, casting soft red light across everything.

It’s pretty.

Taako turns the corner and steps into Kravitz’s line of sight, and -- oh, he’s got it bad, hasn’t he? The marble and glass and flowers and light are nothing compared to that face and that figure and the intricately braided golden hair falling down his back.

Today he’s wearing shorts rather than a skirt; they’re pale green and reach to just above his knees, but they’re tight, stretchy fabric, clinging in a way that would be inappropriate if his shirt wasn’t several sizes too big, falling to the top of his thighs, sleeves billowy and dramatic; caught in at the waist with a broad belt, neckline cut far lower than Kravitz dares to look at. His wrists drip with coloured glass beads; the Umbra Staff, Kravitz notes with caution, hangs from his elbow.

As Kravitz stands and begins to walk over to the elf, he finally notices his accompaniment.

Taako is being followed closely by a child.

A very fancily-dressed child - probably a boy, Kravitz is willing to guess - with a little blue waistcoat and shorts and a matching hat, and very nice shoes. There are practical little pouches and a wand holster on his belt, though, and a silver bracer that matches the ones Taako and his compatriots wear.

Kravitz hadn’t known that organisation also employed children. He’d have to do his best to keep his disapproval quiet.

“Taako,” he greets his date as he approaches, and the elf turns, flashes him that awful crooked smile that makes Kravitz’s face warm.

“Love the flash of colour, darling,” he says, stepping close and tugging at the yellow scarf Kravitz almost decided not to wear and is now very grateful to have kept on.

“I wouldn’t want to look too boring next to you,” he admits, and Taako’s eyes soften at the corners. Barely-restrained delight twists at his lips, but as he goes to speak, the child interrupts their moment.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says, gaze fixed very firmly on Kravitz. It’s a little unnerving, actually. Like he’s being pinned down and analysed. “But I’ve been doing some deducing, and putting together some clues--”

“Never a good sign,” Taako mumbles. The child politely ignores him.

“--and I really need to ask, just one little thing, if that’s alright?”

Kravitz looks at Taako, who shrugs, then at the child, who looks far more serious than a child should. He nods, allowing the question.

“Are you Death, sir?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully it won't be so long between chapters again... post-nanowrimo burnout was a lot.  
> also i see everyones comments and treasure every single one omg im just a shy baby who doesnt know how to respond to praise


End file.
